The Coyotes of Carthage

by Steven Wright

  This new route, on the way to the surprise, leads to the old county seat—a small antebellum plaza that features a town square, where looms the old county capitol, an abandoned courthouse and clock tower that receives little benefit from its inclusion on the state registry of historic places. The square is a ghost town, abandoned for thirty years, yet still has a haunting charm, with cobblestones and kerosene lampposts and century-old hitching rails, antiques of a bygone era that Tyler loves to evoke on the campaign trail.

  Chalene taps the cab window, draws Andre’s attention toward the old city park, where, planted on a parched and patchy lawn, is a phalanx of campaign signs—VOTE YES! FOR LIBERTY!—arranged in sets of twelve by twelve.

  Surprise!

  In general, Andre thinks yard signs are a waste. Yard signs are good for raising the profiles of unknown candidates and unspoken issues. See a sign. Learn the candidate’s name. Not much more to it than that. Study after study has reinforced this point. But Tyler disagrees, thinks he knows better, rejects both the social science and Andre’s experience. You gotta trust me, Dre. I know my town. So, to appease Tyler, to show that Tyler’s voice is valued, Andre designated Tyler director of signs. Gave him that bullshit title and one thousand dollars. And now, sitting in the truck bed, his gaze set upon a sea of campaign signs staked, probably illegally, in a public park that no one visits—signs that the county will surely remove and destroy in the morning—Andre resists the urge to grab a tire iron and pummel Tyler.

  “Look at him. He’s stunned.” Tyler elbows his wife. “Beautiful, brother, ain’t it? I’ve done good?”

  Andre gives two enthusiastic thumbs up—eleven days left, what’s the use in arguing? These past few weeks, he and Tyler have gotten along. Hell, Tyler even calls Andre his “buddy friend.” Why start a blood feud over a couple hundred poorly placed signs?

  The truck crawls forward like a tour bus passing through Arlington National Cemetery, and, to Andre’s disappointment, Tyler doesn’t return to the main road. Instead, the truck takes the scenic route, a bumpy country thoroughfare along which Tyler has placed more signs. The old train station. An abandoned gristmill. A rusted, wheelless trolley set atop concrete blocks.

  Tyler honks his horn, draws Andre’s attention to yet another sign, one placed outside a site that doesn’t appear on the state register of historic places. A slave cabin, no larger than this truck bed, stands alone in an unkempt field of tall dead grass. VOTE YES! FOR LIBERTY! The sign beside the cabin is large, easy to mistake for a billboard, red and white and blue. Sometimes Andre suspects that Tyler isn’t really a clown, that Tyler is a mastermind playing the long game, a sophisticated prankster, a maestro of the ironic, a cynical genius who gets his kicks fucking with Andre. Only through such a lens does Tyler make any sense.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Andre’s created an official-looking notice that evaluates a voter’s election history. The notice gives a grade—from A− to F+. If you don’t vote in the upcoming election, the notice threatens, your friends and neighbors will learn of your grade and of your failure, once again, to perform your constitutional and patriotic duty, the same duty for which your forefathers fought, bled, and died. The campaign will mail these notices to likely supporters who, public records show, have a poor track record of getting off their asses and visiting the polls. Some seven thousand registered voters in all, a class with an average grade of D+. The strategy is simple, backed by social science: threaten to shame your base and they’ll show you love on Election Day.

  Now, seated at a long folding table in Chalene’s living room, Andre thumbs through the top box of letters. Erica Aaker to Portia Bushnell. Each letter is disarmingly ugly: big, boxy type, red and black, printed on jaundiced paper, an intimidating aesthetic that merges the charms of a foreclosure notice and a truant’s report card. This operation costs about ten grand. Not too expensive, but not chump change neither. The fancy paper. The custom calligraphy. The bright golden seal affixed to each letter’s corner. Not voting, he hopes, will represent a form of social suicide, a taboo akin to burning the flag on the Fourth of July.

  Chalene says in her kitchen, “I don’t like this.”

  “The letter never actually claims to be from the government,” he says. “It’s perfectly legal.”

  “It’s perfectly creepy. Makes people feel like they’re being watched.”

  He bites back the urge to ask, isn’t this how her religion works?

  “Make yourself useful.” Chalene sets a relish tray atop the counter. “Fix the table, won’t you? Folks will be here any minute.”

  She’s prepared a small feast, a bounty of finger foods with colorful names: ants on a log, pigs in a blanket, porcupine meatballs. He wants to know from where she gets her stamina. The baby’s due in a few weeks, and she must experience some prenatal fatigue. Shouldn’t she be in bed, resting on her side with a pillow between her knees? But what does he know about pregnancy? Not a damn thing. What he does know: Chalene is a marvel. She wakes each morning long before sunrise, as she says Jesus did in the Book of Mark, and she studies her scripture, says her prayers, journals her thoughts. In recent days, she’s also started to record a podcast. She doesn’t get much help from her husband, who, right now, snores in bed.

  “For you.” She sets down one last plate: fried drumstick, honey-buttered roll, October-bean casserole with streaked meat, peaches in sugar water. “There’s banana pudding in the icebox, but eat your supper first.”

  She leans against the kitchen counter, gathering her thoughts, and a sudden presentiment darkens her face. In the next ten minutes, Andre knows that she will run the vacuum, beat the rug, plump the sofa cushions, none of which is necessary—she did each yesterday—but she fears her guests, due at any moment, will think she keeps an untidy home. These guests, eleven married women between the ages of eighteen and seventy-three, usually convene once a week, a sort of nondenominational faith-based support group in which members share stories and seek inspiration. They focus on family and scripture: how to be a better wife, a better mother, a better citizen and better Christian, but recently, their focus has changed. These twelve now meet each night to act as the liberty initiative’s campaign staff: phoning friends, e-mailing supporters, stuffing official-looking notices into mustard-colored envelopes, all in the name of Jesus Christ.

  Chalene struggles with a heavy vacuum, a monstrous contraption that looks like a relic of a 1960s sitcom, and he goes through the motions of offering to help. She shakes her head, rolls her eyes, says, as she has done each night, in a schoolteacher’s tone, “Andre Ross, if you want to be helpful, sit down, say grace, and eat your supper.” He obeys her command, though he’s starting to suspect that the free meal is a massive con, a ploy to get him to learn Bible verses. The joke’s on her. He already knows two verses by heart, the first, Jesus wept, the second, Prepare chains! For the land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence, which, for nearly a quarter century, has been inked, in blue script, across Hector’s back.

  He chooses to recite the second.

  “Dre,” she shouts over the vacuum. “Are you readin’ those verses I send?”

  He pretends not to hear; the vacuum is comically loud. If she’ll play the schoolteacher, then he’ll play the class clown. She prefers that he recite any other verse—something less dark, something less violent, something happy and joyful and full of God’s love. To that end, she texts a verse each night.

  “They’re not just some random verses,” she shouts. “I put a lot of thought into those, picking out verses specially for you.”

  Somewhere down the hall, a door shuts.

  “Do me a favor, won’t you?” she shouts. “Read the devotional. The green one I gave you with the blue clouds on the cover. It’s designed for busy professionals like you. Three minutes every morning. Can you do that? Please?”

  The last bite of chicken. A swallow of sweet tea. His plate and cup are now empty. Did she say something about banana pudding?r />
  “You’re worse than my boys, you know that?” She cuts the vacuum, turns her attention to the sofa cushions, which she punches, hard, fast, angry jabs, as though the cushions owe her money. “Just enjoy being contrarious. At the peril of your soul. But we’ll see who’s laughing on Judgment Day. You wait and see.”

  He suddenly feels exhausted. The meal was too large. Too much sugar. He might take a nap, might eat the banana pudding. These heavy meals are worse than Brendan’s.

  “Is that what you want? St. Peter, at the pearly gate, running his finger down his ledger. And whatcha gonna say? I couldn’t be bothered to take three minutes. You know the Lord Jesus suffered on the cross for hours.” She moves on to beat the next cushion. “Promise me one thing, Dre, promise me that you’ll—”

  The doorbell rings, ends both the lecture and the cushion assault.

  “Remind them. We’ll have vans on Election Day,” he says. “They need to tell the callers about the free rides. We’re happy to take supporters to the polls.”

  “Vans. Free ride. Ferry folks to the polls. Got it.” She blinks hard, as though the action commits his instruction to memory. “Get the door, but don’t rush.”

  He takes his time, each step slow and dramatic, which gets a laugh from Chalene as she hides the vacuum. “Stop being silly and answer the door. And we’re not done talking about salvation. I ain’t giving up on you yet.”

  On the front porch stand eleven well-dressed, well-preened women, each with a casserole dish in hand. This, he’s learned, is a Carthage custom. If you visit someone’s home—even for a moment—you’d better bring food. The women shed their coats, talking, laughing, a noisy group that acts like they haven’t seen each other in years, though all were here yesterday. These twelve, wearing matching campaign sweatshirts, are, in their own way, diverse: nursing assistant, laundry-truck driver, assistant preschool teacher.

  He knows a fair amount about each woman, far more than they know about him, though they have reached a consensus that he’s a down-on-his-luck drifter, a vagabond whom Chalene found like a scared, unwashed puppy beside the road. He must be, they whisper, a lost soul whom Chalene wants to bring back to God. Chalene, he trusts, hasn’t shared any details, merely says that Andre is a friend who prefers to keep his own business, a vague, mysterious introduction that has only deepened the women’s mistrust. One woman—Daisy, the rash-faced grocery clerk with two sons, both imprisoned, the older for prescription shenanigans, the younger for sexual assault—found Andre’s conviction online, a record, which she shared, that revealed his crime, birthplace, age, and true first name. This use of an alternate first name—my God, he’s changed his identity—drove the group insane, made the women believe that he has something nefarious to hide. Sweetheart, each woman told Chalene, don’t let him near your Social Security number.

  For three months, he worried that folks might learn he’s a well-paid, high-powered campaign consultant, but now he rests easy knowing that people think he’s simply a bum. And that, to him, epitomizes the kind of place Carthage is. A place where folks will easily believe that a black man with a decades-old criminal record is a wandering rogue but will never—never, ever, not in a million years—believe that this same black man is a political puppeteer running a secret grassroots, corporate-financed dark-money campaign.

  Bless their little hearts.

  For them, Andre plays the part. Or at least that’s what he tells himself. He looks homeless and wild, his skin sallow and blotchy, the bags beneath his eyes tender and swollen. A shave, a haircut—he hasn’t had either in weeks. Hasn’t felt much like it, not since he returned from Washington.

  “Ladies. My sisters in Christ. We should get going.” Chalene claps, claps, claps her hands. “We got a lot to get done tonight. Amen?”

  Amen.

  The women, like deliberating jurors, take their seats around the long, cloth-covered folding table that Andre bought for this specific occasion. Tonight is the fifth straight night of phone banking.

  “I’ve got new call lists for you.” Chalene distributes lists that Andre assembled this morning. “Yours should include folks who you haven’t reached yet. Some folks might be at the fair, amen, but we’re gonna keep trying. Also, we got a new endorsement today. Pastor Caesar of Old Mission Baptist West has joined our righteous cause. Amen.”

  Amen.

  “That brings our total number of endorsements from pastors to thirty-three. Amen! And remember, we got a van on Election Day. So when you speak to folks, let them know we’re happy to give ’em a ride. Amen? Free rides, back and forth, to the polls? Amen? Any questions? Amen? Sisters, can I get an amen?”

  Amen.

  The women join hands and pray, Lord bless us as we touch our neighbors’ hearts. Andre, standing outside their chain, seizes his chance and, while heads are bowed, removes his flask, pours scotch into his cup of sweet tea. He thinks he’s gotten away with it but catches Chalene cheating, peeking in her prayers, which is surely blasphemy.

  The prayer ends with another amen, and the women start their calls. The twelve, using their own cell phones, have a strict purpose, either to persuade undecideds or to remind supporters to get out and vote. He’s ghostwritten a voter-contact script, tips and canned lines to launch a polite conversation, but these women want to share what’s in their hearts, their insights into their communities, their families, their frustrations, the lack of jobs, the lack of morals, the lack of Jesus Christ in American life, but above all else, these women want to share their anger at Paula Carrothers.

  * * *

  “Shhh. Hush up, everyone,” says the eldest member of the Christian wives group, a seventy-three-year-old grocery clerk, a widow with one good eye and one bad ear. “This is it. Isn’t it? Wait. You sure this is the right channel?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s the right channel,” says the youngest member, the eighteen-year-old with tatted-up arms. She’s been married two years, her husband a marine serving in the gulf. She works three jobs, hotel maid by day, 911 operator by night, hospital orderly on weekends. She’s tiny, barely one hundred pounds, and wants to become a paramedic. She says, in her most respectful tone, “It’s only nine ten. We got two minutes to go.”

  The room is a powder keg of anticipation, with all eyes upon the TV. In two minutes, the campaign’s first thirty-second spot will debut. In the meantime, the team enjoys the first act of some generic police procedural in which a team of righteous federal agents, clean-cut white guys with strong jaws, use guile and cunning to catch the crook.

  “Shhh. This is it.” The widow thrusts her crooked finger toward the television, and this time, she’s right. All twelve women lean in, wide-eyed and bright-faced, as though they are watching Neil Armstrong hopscotch across the surface of the moon. To Andre, this ad is nothing special. In fact, he’s a little embarrassed. The campaign lacked the cash to make something fancy, so he hired a Charleston-based crew, a pair of twentysomething film-school dropouts who recorded and cut the ad in two days. Happy children, soaring eagles, the raising of the flag above Iwo Jima—the commercial begins with relics of American patriotism, fades into local supporters shouting: Carthage County, proud and free. A wrinkle-faced veteran wearing a garrison cap; a gap-toothed girl selling lemonade; a kind-faced, nonthreatening black woman, who is the commercial’s only paid actor and not a resident of Carthage. Carthage County, proud and free. The final seconds feature the Lees’ friends and family, two dozen supporters, including each woman in this room, standing in a semicircle around Chalene and Tyler, who, holding hands, look right into the camera and say, “Carthage County, on Election Day, vote yes for the only initiatives on our ballot. Vote yes for liberty. Carthage County is proud and free.”

  The women rise in ovation. One woman shouts encore. Another shouts bellissimo. Another shouts arrivederci. One woman raises her hands, begins to praise His name, as though the past thirty seconds were a religious experience. For sure these women have never before seen themselves on television, and,
yes, they like it. They are now bona fide celebrities, their faces seen as far away as Newberry. Newberry! Never, in their entire lives, could they have imagined such a thing possible. Thirty seconds of stardom that, thanks to the DVRs and VCRs, they can watch over and over in the privacy of their own homes for the rest of their lives, to show future generations and to proudly boast, I did this!

  This commercial is one of two. A second commercial features pastors and civic leaders who have endorsed the campaign. In total, Andre’s bought sixty thirty-second television spots. Cost about half the campaign’s remaining budget, which doesn’t include the radio ad buy, a purchase of one hundred spots, the first of which aired yesterday. Each commercial, as well as behind-the-scenes interviews, will also play online.

  “Can we watch it again?” Janine with the cleft lip is on her knees, poking buttons on the VCR. “Miss Chalene, does your machine have slow-mo?”

  Andre sees his opportunity, quietly catches Chalene’s eye and mouths, Good night. He considers wishing the women farewell, but he doesn’t want to disturb the euphoria of newfound fame. They’re already watching it again. He sneaks through the side door, and, on a clear, starry night with a full moon, fishes his keys from his pocket.

  “Dre, hon, why don’t you come back inside?” Chalene chases after him. “The girls will be gone soon. I’ll fix you some coffee. You, me, my Tyler, we can talk a bit.”

  “I should get home.” He spots, over Chalene’s shoulder, the widow spying through the curtains. “Nice job today, by the way. You’re doing great.”

  “You look a little tired.”

  “Do we have to do this every night?” He doesn’t yell, but his tone is sharp. “It’s late. Of course I’m tired. We’ve been working all damn day. I want to go home.”

  She wraps her arms around him, whispers, “I’m praying for you, honey, really I am.” He knows her well enough to mistrust this show of affection. What she’s really doing is sniffing for booze, and, sure, his breath might contain a hint of scotch, but he’s not drunk, at least not legally drunk, at least not drunk enough to fail a sobriety test, at least he thinks.